Defining the Good School: Educational Adequacy Requires More than Minimums

The deck is stacked against educators and parents/caregivers looking for educational adequacy in contemporary US education. Too often, satisfactory quality in the good public school is identified based on opinion, the dubious value of standardized test results, and marketing ploys. Moreover, the contemporary purpose of US education and the definition of educational adequacy are wild cards that prevent most from playing a winning hand. Finding the good public school is left to chance. This book initiates a search to transform this state of affairs. All students deserve a comprehensive public education that invests in the original power of education, dynamic instruction, and principled reasoning. This discussion tackles the barriers—the eye of the beholder, the tyranny of either/or, and standardized testing—that hobble the capacities of educators and students. Once these barriers are removed, the determinants of comprehensive public education—power, policy, and instruction—emerge. From these discoveries implications are derived that indicate how comprehensive public education engages educators and students with a transformed definition of educational adequacy. The good public school depends on this and a complete readjustment of the purpose of US public education. This search enables educators and parents/caregivers to identify and establish the good public school without taking any chances.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Preface Introduction CHAPTER 1. What’s the Purpose of Public Education? The Contemporary Purpose of Education At A Loss to Glimpse the Future The More US Education Changes, the More It Stays the Same A Selfie Puts Education’s Purpose and Educational Adequacy to the Test A Selfie Reveals… State Authority for Public Education A Diverse Student Population High School Graduation Funding for US Education Parents and Caregivers The Impact of Standardized Testing Contemporary Purpose and Standardized Testing What Do We Have Here? Implications from the Selfie A Picture That Demands at Least a Thousand Words A Future for US Public Education Beginning to Search with the End in Mind CHAPTER 2. True North: The Moral Obligation of Public Education True North and Socialization Socialization and Moral Obligation in Public Education Moral Obligation: One Point of View Moral Obligation: Another Point of View The Troubled History of Moral Obligation The Impact of US History Moral Obligation and the Absence of Critical Habits of Mind The Capacity for Moral Obligation in Public Education Leading-Out Principled Reasoning Fostering Autonomy and Relatedness Interpretations of Moral Obligation Two Imperatives of the Moral Obligation of Public Education Responses to these Imperatives Students and Self-Mastery and Principled Reasoning Choices and the Future of Moral Obligation Moral Obligation and Choices About Student Capacity Moral Obligation and Choices About Agency in Public Education Standing in the Way of Moral Obligation Precepts of the Moral Obligation of US Public Education CHAPTER 3. The Eye of the Beholder: An Unavoidable Barrier This Search and Its Barriers The Perspectives and Publics of Contemporary US Public Education History and the Eye of the Beholder Major Perspectives About US Public Education Free Market Schooling Choice + Mechanisms = Competition in the Free Market In the Free Market Only the Individual Knows Best To Create the Marketplace Only the Self-Anointed Know Best Traditional Public Schools Two Publics in US Public Education The Public And the public Barriers Arise Where None Should Exist Why Do These Barriers Endure? Taking this Search Beyond the Eye of the Beholder CHAPTER 4. A Barrier Within: The Tyranny of Either/Or The Synergy of Struggle Characteristics of the Tyranny of Either/Or Adult-Centric Advantage Ideology Is Destiny Reform Is Ideology Education Is Singularity The TEO Barrier: School-Attached or School-Detached The Bricks in this Barrier Dismantling the Tyranny of Either/Or CHAPTER 5. Confronting the Barrier of Conventional Wisdom The Authority of Conventional Wisdom The Baleful State of Educational Adequacy Educational Adequacy as a Social Construction Educational Adequacy as Minimum Quality A Challenge to Educational Adequacy? See You in Court! Deficiencies and Disparities How Educational Adequacy Becomes Conventional Wisdom The Paradox of Educational Adequacy Educational Adequacy: A Dead End Can Conventional Wisdom Be More than Minimums? Reconsidering Educational Adequacy Conventional Wisdom and Linearity Mediational Influence CHAPTER 6. The Measurement Barrier in US Public Education I-P-O and Measurement: Standardized Testing Measurement and its Misnomers Measurement Misnamed: Accountability Measurement Misnamed: Efficiency Naming Rights: The Convenience of Efficiency Measurement Misnamed: Cost Abatement The Fog of Certainty Testing Bait and Switch Just More Numbers in the Wall Students Lost in the Fog Measurement and the Illusion Called Gap-Gazing The Weakness of the Bricks in this Barrier The Case for Effective Evaluation Examples of Effective Evaluation Teaching to Cognitive Expectations The End of Measurement Inadequacy CHAPTER 7. Power and Public Education The Presence of Power in Education The Rationale for the Future of US Public Education The Heart of the Good Public School Power: Abuse and Potential of a Steady State When Power Is Exclusionary The Minor Leagues: Purpose, Power, and Education Why the Original Power of Education Is Vulnerable Amorality and External Power The Many Effects When Wires Cross The “What,” “Who,” and “Why” of Power in Education The “What” of Power in Public Education The “Who” of Power in Public Education The “Why” of Power in Public Education Power and “I Identify As…” Statements “I Identify As…” Statements “I Identify As…” Statements and Stereotype Threat Avoiding the Absolutes: Power + Corruption Uncritical Habits of Mind: A Case Example Subordination within Contemporary Education Freedom: The Original Power of Education Power for the Freedom of the Intentional Self CHAPTER 8. Dynamic Instruction: Act I—Function, Evaluation, Precursors Setting the Stage for Dynamic Instruction Learning Styles Are Instructionally Anemic Stable Instruction Is an Unreliable Presumption Dynamic Instruction Educational Function Educational Adequacy and Educational Function Educational Function and Instructional Mapping Effective Evaluation Instructional Precursors Act I: Exeunt All CHAPTER 9. Dynamic Instruction: Act II—Student Engagement Student Engagement and Satisfactory Quality The Triumvirate of Student Engagement Pedagogical Agency The Expectations of Pedagogical Agency Authoritative Engagement Languaging and Student Engagement The Languaging of a Think-Aloud The Relationship between Languaging and Memory Student Engagement and Habits of Mind A Curtain Call for Act II The Reviews Are In: Dynamic Instruction CHAPTER 10. Policy and Idiocy in US Public Education The Idiocy of Contemporary Educational Policy The Idiocy of Policy: More Linearity The Idiocy of Policy: Fantasy The Idiocy of Policy: Ignorance by Choice The Wreck of the Good Ship Educational Policy Policy and the Siren Song of “Reform” Locally-Sourced Policy Educational Policy: A Mutable Dialectic A Snapshot of the Mutable Dialectic for Policy Removing Idiocy from the Policy Menu 21st Century Educational Policy Common Ground: Policy for the Good Public School CHAPTER 11. Recovering the “public” of US Education The Shared Circumstance of “public” in Education The Intelligence of Common Ground Freedom Vis-à-vis Learning A Sample Lesson: The Social Contract Common Ground: “public” Balance and Common Ground Connection and Common Ground Agency and Common Ground CHAPTER 12. Weaving Educational Adequacy and the Good Public School Transforming Educational Adequacy Commitments About Comprehensive Public Education Choices, Weaving, and Philosophy The Good Public School: Indicators and Objectives 21CPE Indicators 21CPE Objectives Objective #1: The Good School Is Functionally Public Objective #2: The Good Public School Is How to Think Objective #3: The Good Public School Fulfills Moral Obligation Objective #4: The Good Public School Is Student-Centric Objective #5: Directing the Power of Comprehensive Public Education CHAPTER 13. Implications from this Search for Educational Adequacy The Second Implication The Third Implication The Fourth Implication The Fifth Implication The Sixth Implication Learning from the Implications of this Search Teachable Moments and Legitimacy for 21CPE CHAPTER 14. Student Futures and Comprehensive Public Education We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us Stasis vs. Transformation The First Tenet: Power The Second Tenet: True North The Third Tenet: Principled Reasoning The Fourth Tenet: Critical Habits of Mind The Fifth Tenet: Common Ground The Benchmarks for 21CPE Promises Empower 21CPE Freedom in Comprehensive Public Education Dealing with the “If” of 21CPE Welcome to the Good Public School References Index

About the Author :
Jeff Swensson served in traditional public education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent across the Midwest for the past 45 years. He graduated from Amherst College, received his MAT from Northwestern University, and earned his PhD from Indiana University. Michael Shaffer served in schools in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Iowa as an assistant principal, principal, and assistant superintendent. He graduated from Morehead State University with a BA and MA in elementary education and earned his Education Specialist and Education Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Ball State University.

Review :
I was struck by Swensson’s and Shaffer’s “data selfie” regarding American public education as the metaphorical equivalent of the ancient Greek cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope who has been painted with a lantern held in the faces of the citizens of Athens searching for an honest man. Swensson and Shaffer are long time educators, trench workers in the fight for adequate education for all students, something too many have given up on as the impossible dream. They bring us back to first principles and re-establish the case for moral clarity and not market efficiency as the driving force for true educational reform. “Educational adequacy” is the way that many of our U.S. state constitutions define the government’s obligation to public education. Legal decisions over federal or state financial obligations to public schools use this term repeatedly. But educational adequacy has remained a murky, legalistic, and empty term. The authors of Defining the Good School show us that our responsibility for creating the conditions for a “good public school” for every child is the singular task for achieving educational adequacy. Spelling out both the purposes of, and barriers to the good public school, the authors create a compelling vision for comprehensive public education in the 21st century founded on the powerful construct of critical habits of mind. I recommend this book to school leaders and policy-makers at all levels of governance.